In its “near abroad” of Central Asia and the Caucasus, Moscow has managed to regain a lot of its lost stature. Over the past decade, it has reconstituted much of its former influence through the construction of new political blocs, such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and by manipulating the region’s fragile regimes. At the same time, it has worked diligently to shoulder the United States out of important post–September 11 military basing arrangements and reemerge as the unquestioned power in the post-Soviet space. 4
Russia’s return to global prominence has been engineered by Vladimir Putin, who, since his ascent to power in the last days of 1999, has taken Russia in a dramatically different direction from his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.
During the Yeltsin era, Russia had become known as the “wild east,” a place where gangster capitalism ran amok, 5organized crime was ubiquitous, 6and worries abounded over the security of the country’s vast nuclear arsenal. 7But it also saw the rise of real pluralism and open political debate.
Putin, by contrast, has exploited weariness with economic instability to concentrate power in a repressive, centralized state. Putin’s authoritarian regime rules by political fiat, rewards loyalists through a vast network of corruption, and cows its political opponents into silence. 8It simultaneously maintains its popularity through nationalistic posturing. Two decades after the Soviet collapse, Russia is ruled by a government that is consumed with its own financial well-being and global status but neglectful of the long-term needs of its people.
Not surprisingly, military modernization has become a central plank of Putin’s agenda. Over the past decade, the Russian government has made major investments in its strategic forces with the aim of building a “twenty-first-century nuclear arsenal” that can overwhelm missile defenses and threaten the West. 9This effort has included the creation of new intercontinental ballistic missiles, the deployment of additional long-range strike capabilities, and serious work on electromagnetic pulse weapons, with an additional estimated $600 billion to be spent on improving Russia’s military capabilities through the end of the decade. 10
Russia has done this even as the United States has sought to reduce its own capabilities. Since coming to power, the Obama administration has consistently advocated the total elimination of nuclear weapons, a concept colloquially known as “global zero,” and made significant reductions to America’s strategic arsenal in pursuit of that objective. President Obama’s second term will include still more such cuts. 11
The goal of Putin’s policies is to reclaim Russia’s geopolitical greatness. In 2005, in his annual state of the nation address to the Russian parliament, Putin referred to the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the last century. 12Putin’s comments created a firestorm in the West, where memories of the “Evil Empire” are still fresh. But at home, his words resonated with many Russians. It’s easy to see why; an October 2012 survey conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that a third of Russians polled approved of or admired former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, while an equal number said that Russia needs a strong ruler like him. Support for Stalin had actually increasedsince the end of the Soviet Union. Surveying these discouraging results, Russia expert Masha Lipmann concluded that the “Russian people still have not come to terms with Stalin’s legacy.” 13
Nor have they abandoned the idea of their country’s destiny as a great power. This concept, known as derzhavnost, has animated Russian politics for centuries, driving successive czars to wage wars of conquest to expand the territories under their rule. Today, Putin’s government has harnessed derzhavnostin its efforts to create a neo-Soviet sphere—a post-modern empire of extended Kremlin influence (if not actual territorial control). 14
Russia likewise has demonstrated a growing willingness to challenge America strategically. Even as policymakers in Washington have sought to “reset” political relations with Moscow, the Russian government has revived a corrosive brand of anti-Americanism that views the United States as Russia’s “main enemy” and geopolitical rival. Russia’s more aggressive stance toward the United States was evident in 2012 when it twice violated the territorial sovereignty of the United States by carrying out aerial maneuvers inside the U.S. air defense zone. The moves were shockingly reminiscent of Soviet provocations during the Cold War. 15
THE REAL THREAT FROM RUSSIA
In crafting their policies, Western governments have taken for granted that Russia, once weak, is now resurgent and that Moscow must be accommodated, or at least engaged.
Yet, for all of the Kremlin’s current geopolitical posturing, Russia’s revival will be fleeting, because the Russian Federation is fast approaching a massive social and political upheaval that promises to be as transformative as the USSR’s demise some two decades ago. Russia’s coming crisis is driven by the convergence of three trends:
Russia is dying. Russia is undergoing a catastrophic post-Soviet societal decline due to abysmal health standards, runaway drug addiction, and an AIDS crisis that officials have termed an “epidemic.” The population of the Russian Federation is declining by close to half a million souls every year due to death and emigration. At this rate, the once-mighty Russian state could lose a quarter of its population by the middle of this century. And according to some projections, if Russia’s demographic trajectory does not change, its population could plummet to as little as fifty-two million people by 2080. 16It’s a phenomenon demographers have described as “the emptying of Russia”—a wholesale implosion of Russia’s human capital and a collapse of its prospects as a viable modern state. 17
Russia is transforming. Russia is experiencing a radical change in its ethnic and religious composition. Today, Russia’s estimated twenty-one million Muslims are still a distinct minority. But Muslims are on track to account for a fifth of the country’s population by the end of this decade, and a majority by mid-century. 18Such a demographic revolution will fundamentally change Russia’s character. That is not a problem, per se. But in recent years, the Kremlin has discriminated against its Muslim minority and ignored (even abetted) the rise of xenophobia among its citizens. This has bred resentment and alienation among Russia’s Muslims, sentiments that radical Islamic groups have begun to exploit. The result is an increasingly restive Muslim minority with little connection to—or love for—the Russian state.
The Chinese are coming. A decline in Russia’s population east of the Ural Mountains and a loosening of Kremlin control over the country’s resource-rich east has sharpened the strategic competition with neighboring China and brought long-buried tensions over the future of the region back to the surface. In this unfolding conflict, China, a rising global economic and strategic power, holds the upper hand over a declining Russia. And, because it does, China could soon grow bold enough to challenge Russia for dominion over the latter’s economically vital eastern territories.
WHY RUSSIAN WEAKNESS MATTERS